Digging Deep: NYC History, Hidden Beneath Our Feet

Frick Collection Bowling Alley

We were at The Frick Collection last week and would have brought our bowling shoes (which are black with white stars and pink laces, in case you were wondering) if we had known about this gem in the basement!  American industrialist Henry Clay Frick built the two-lane, pine and maple bowling alley (and an accompanying billiard room) in the basement of his Upper East Side mansion in 1914, paying $850 to the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company to complete the job.  Following Frick's death in 1918, his daughter Helen Clay Frick stored books for the Frick Art Reference Library in the space.  The lanes, restored in 1997, are not available to the public today because the single exit poses a fire hazard.  Still, that won't stop us from practicing our game - after all, we want to be spared the embarrassment of a gutter ball if we're ever invited to the Frick's alley to play a few frames. [Photo via]